


The Policy

by Thea_Bromine



Series: Kaleidoscope [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles and Xander try out the ‘screw-up, confession, yelling, grovelling’ plan. This story follows on from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1160614">When You Have To Go There</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1160687">You Asked For It </a>and won’t make any sense at all unless you read at least the former first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revising the Policy

The library door banged.

“What in hell’s name did you think you were _doing_?”

Xander bleated some apology; Giles steamrollered over the top of him.

“I gave you perfectly clear and straightforward instructions; you said you understood them; the situation did _not_ warrant you doing _anything other than what you were bloody told!_ ”

“Giles, I...”

“The reason we let Buffy do the slaying is that Buffy is the Slayer. I don’t recall anything in the research suggesting that Xander was the Slayer and I’m reasonably certain that the Watchers’ Council would have mentioned it to me if there had been a change of policy.”

“I know, I’m...”

“I cannot – I _will_ not – allow you to come along on these expeditions if you can’t follow basic orders.” He thrust an armful of weaponry at Xander and yanked the first aid kit from the office shelf. “Start cleaning those; I will go and see how much medical attention my Slayer needs on account of having had to rescue you from a situation entirely of your own making, and believe me, if she is suffering from anything worse than a _hangnail_ because of what you did...”

“I’m sorry...”

Giles stopped and glared at him. “Sometimes ‘sorry’ doesn’t cut it.” He watched the dark head drop, and felt a degree of satisfaction. He had genuinely thought tonight that both Buffy and Xander were going to die; as it was, Buffy had a cut running across her shoulder blade and he himself had a gash down his ribs which was hurting like all hell. He had, he thought, a great deal more to say to Master Harris on the subject of following orders.

Down in the girls’ changing room, Willow had cleaned the blood from Buffy’s skin by the time Giles rapped on the door and announced himself. He inspected the slash, applied butterfly closures and a waterproof bandage, and left them to the comforts of hot water. His temper was barely improved by finding the damage much less than he had feared; it left him room to plan a few choice sentences for Xander.

And to begin with, the boy was going to look at what he had – however indirectly – done to Giles.

“Come here. I need you to clean and bandage this: I can’t reach it.” There was nothing new in that; Xander had cleaned up wounds for Giles before, and Giles for Xander, but never anything more than scratches. This was not a scratch; it wasn’t deep enough to cause serious damage but it was going to scar. He said as much, instructing Xander in cold, clipped tones how to manage the bandages so that the fibrosis wouldn’t result in any loss of flexibility. Xander was silent, and Giles could tell once or twice that his hands were trembling, but he was quick and gentle with the antiseptic wipes and the dressing, and when he had finished, he went to update the list they always kept of what needed to be replaced in the first aid box, and then came back unprompted to stand in front of Giles, face serious and gaze on the floor.

“That hurts,” said Giles conversationally. “It hurts a lot. It hurts because a Kasr demon rammed a claw into my side and dragged it downwards through my skin. And the reason it was able to do that is that I couldn’t get my sword arm far enough forward to defend myself, on account of you leaving the position you were told to be in, and arsing about in the way. I imagine that the gash across Buffy’s back is hurting her too. She ought not to have that. It should not have been possible for the juvenile demon to come up behind her, because the person watching her back was supposed to be you.” He shook a couple of large tablets out of the familiar bottle and swallowed them dry; it was almost certainly not good for him to take as many analgesics as he did, but the alternative was worse.

“So explain to me first of all what your plan was, and then we’ll move on to why you thought it was better than mine, and precisely how you thought it was going to work if nobody except you knew about it, and the rest of us were all working to a different one. Feel free to cover leaving your post, getting in the way, forgetting that what we were doing was supposed to be an ambush, not a charge, and ignoring everything I’ve taught you about observation, about control and about working as a team. I’m sure I’ll find it most edifying and well worth a four inch gash and half a pint of blood.”

The carpet appeared to be peculiarly interesting; certainly Xander wasn’t lifting his gaze from it.

“Well?”

“I’m sorry. I screwed up.”

“That’s a start, I suppose. Do go on.”

It seemed Xander couldn’t. Giles, on the other hand, could, and did, for several minutes, with Xander turning first red and then white under the onslaught. It was only when Giles’ gaze fell on Xander's clenched fist that he hesitated, in mid sentence, and then reached for Xander's wrist.

“Open your hand.”

The marks of Xander's fingernails were clearly imprinted in his palm; the skin was broken in two places. Giles dropped his hand, and grabbed instead at his chin.

“Look at me?”

Xander hesitated for a beat, before reluctantly raising his eyes to Giles’ face. They stared at each other and Giles snatched his hand back.

“Get on with cleaning the weapons.”

“Giles, I...”

“Do as you are told, please.” It was low, and not particularly aggressive but Xander fled; Giles found himself trembling. The boy was afraid. Not just the normal ‘please let this be over’ reaction of a teenager in trouble having his ears chewed off, but genuinely afraid – and Giles felt sick. His ribs hurt, and he was heartsore too; he was so bloody _angry_ with Xander but he had never, as far as he knew, had a child afraid of him before and he didn’t like it. He wanted Xander quailing from his anger, wincing at his sarcasm, shrinking from his words; he _didn’t_ want Xander quailing from _him_. He gathered himself to say something – something that would at least not be unkind, and went out of the office into the main part of the library. Xander, sitting at the table, surrounded by weaponry, looked up desperately into Giles’ face and pushed something across the surface at him.

“I – I know – you said before you wanted to, and, and, I deserve it.”

Giles looked down. What Xander was offering him was a thick strap, tooled leather, probably part of an axe yoke. It took him a moment to remember what he had said and to recognise what the boy meant.

“Christ! No!” He shoved the thing back, horrified; what the hell was Xander _thinking_? What did Xander think that Giles... That strap was twice the weight at least of Giles’ belt, harness leather, probably four inches wide. The very thought... he shuddered. _Why_ would Xander think...

The door banging made him jump.

“Hey guys, how did it go?” Oz was armed with a guitar case and a grin, which slipped as he looked at Giles, white tape showing through a large hole in his bloodstained shirt, and Xander, cleaning a short sword and not looking up in greeting.

“Oz. Good, good gig?”

“Remembered all the words, which is progress. You?”

“Nobody dead.” That was a little sharp, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Xander wince. “The, the girls are getting themselves cleaned up.”

“Want a hand?”

“I’m, I’m going to reshelve the books, but I dare say Xander could, could do with some help.” He retreated to his beloved bookshelves, looking for calm and not finding it. He went on dealing with the books. They at least were straightforward. Behind him, he could hear Oz’s voice, low and composed, and Xander's, and even at that distance, too far to make out words, he could tell that Xander was miserable.

Presently, Oz came up with an armload of books.

“You need these up here too?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“You mad at Xander?”

“Yes.” He bit it off before he could let rip about precisely what Xander had done. Xander's sins were many, but they were Xander's and he would – when he had thought of some way to do it – pick them over with Xander, not with Oz.

“You gonna yell at him? I can go away if you want, come back later.”

“I – no. No, I’m not going to shout at him. He knows what he did, he saw the consequences of it.” He picked up another handful of books.

“Hnh. Not my business, of course.”

“No,” agreed Giles, acidly, “it’s not.”

“But Xander says you had a deal.”

That was so unexpected that Giles turned to look at him. Oz was leaning against a bookshelf, apparently examining the binding of one of the books. “A... deal?”

“Way he understood it, if you were mad at him, you would yell until you weren’t mad any more.” He paused and frowned at the book in his hands. “Doughnuts came into it somewhere; I didn’t get that bit.”

“Yes. Well. Xander doesn’t cope well with people shouting at him. I think perhaps too many people have shouted at him.”

“Think you’re right. Trouble is, Giles, he doesn’t cope well with being shut out, either.” Oz pushed himself off the bookcase and turned away, and Giles had a sudden flash of amused affection for him – for all this ridiculous and incomprehensible little group.

“Oz?”

He turned, head cocked enquiringly. Giles jerked his chin to bring Oz back, and spoke softly. “Do you go to gym class with Xander?”

He shook his head. “Different year, remember? Why?”

Giles looked at the floor. It was a fair question and one he had only just begun to ask. “I’m wondering quite why Xander copes so badly when I shout. I’m wondering about... if you had ever seen... ever noticed...”

Oz was smart. “About unexplained bruises, maybe? Can’t say I’ve ever noticed anything... though the things we do, aren’t many bruises you couldn’t explain away. Marked up a bit yourself, Giles.”

He was. And it hurt. Even with the painkillers, it hurt. It wasn’t improving his temper at all, and it wasn’t helping with clear thought as to _how_ he should handle Xander.

“Think you should ask Willow. She’d know.”

“I, I don’t think she would tell me. Not if she thought Xander wanted her not to.”

Oz backed away a little, thoughtfully. “I dunno. You’re looking out for Xander, we’ve all seen that. She might.”

“I doubt it. She couldn’t have missed how angry I was tonight. I don’t think she’d see that as ‘looking out’ for him.”

“You’d be surprised.” He hesitated. “She’s not a good liar. Ask her. I think you could tell if she was lying, and that would be an answer, wouldn’t it?” He turned away and Giles, surprising himself, called him back a second time.

“Oz? If you ever felt like biting somebody – not turning them, just teeth in the throat stuff – I would feel no particular urge to investigate anything bad happening to Mr Harris.”

Oz shuddered. “I’d be afraid of catching something worse than what I’ve already got. I’m told rabies shots are painful.”

Giles snorted. “There is that. It was only an idea.” They heard the library door; Oz grinned.

“I’ll send Willow to you.”  

Giles didn’t hear how he did it, but Willow wandered up a few minutes later. “Oz said you wanted to ask me something?”

He waved her to the step-stool and leaned wearily against a book-case. “I, I, I, yes, I wanted to know, I wondered if you, I don’t want you to break confidences but I need to know if, if...”

If Willow’s eyebrows rose any further they would disappear into her hair for ever, and she was leaning forward and nodding to encourage him. He spat it out. “Willow, is Xander's father violent towards him?”

She squeaked. It must be true, the association between witches and bats; nothing else explained the pitch of some of Willow’s verbal responses. And she was staring at him, all eyes and round startled mouth.

“Giles!”

It would be easier to give her a clue. “Willow, I’m angry with him, you can’t be surprised by that. And he’s scared of me. Not just a bit anxious, but plain terrified. I, I don’t know what he’s expecting me to do that frightens him so much. I _do_ know his father shouts at him; I want to know if his father hits him.”

Her head moved slowly from side to side.

“Are, are you sure? You’ve never seen bruises that, that...”

She was shaking her head more decidedly now. “Giles, he doesn’t care enough to hit Xander.”

He was utterly speechless; Willow watched him flounder and obviously thought about what she had said. “Oh... that didn’t come out quite right.”

“God, I hope not. Harris doesn’t _care_ enough to abuse his son? Care to try again?”

She frowned. “Mr Harris doesn’t care what Xander does. If he hit him, it would be because Xander had done something Mr Harris didn’t like? Or, or said something wrong?”

Giles nodded. He didn’t agree with her: he thought it perfectly possible that an abusive parent could abuse just Because, but he thought he understood what she meant. There would be a trigger, however insignificant.

“But they don’t care, either of them. They only shout at him because he’s there. They’re so wrapped up in fighting with each other... I don’t know why they don’t just get a divorce. Except... sometimes when they argue, they threaten each other...” her voice trailed away.

“Yes?”

She looked at him, her eyes filling with tears. “Other people’s parents fight and threaten to leave with the kids and deny access. His...”

“Oh merciful heaven.”

“The threat is leaving him behind. For the other one to deal with.”  

“Not required on voyage.”

She shook her head. “What he’s scared of isn’t you, Giles. He’d rather be yelled at than...”

“Than abandoned.”

She shrugged. “He said,” she offered in a small voice, “that you were kind to him.”

Dear Lord. Kind. Giles had turned him away, taken him back, fed him and... and generally treated him like a lost puppy. Now, he didn’t any longer have the option of taking the puppy to the pound – and he had known that, in his heart, ever since he had given Xander a key to his flat. He had told Xander that no matter what he did, he could always come back, that Giles would shout at him and then forgive him – and then he hadn’t shouted, or hadn’t completed shouting, and Xander, not unreasonably, had assumed that the forgiveness wouldn’t be forthcoming either.

None of which helped in any way with the immediate problem of Xander's dangerous disobedience and thoughtlessness, but the plain fact was that if he took Xander on, he didn’t get to choose which aspects of Xander he took on. He had accepted responsibility for Xander's physical well-being; he couldn’t refuse the rest of it. He couldn’t just feed and occasionally house the boy; he was going to have to bring him up and he didn’t know how.

Tony Harris didn’t know how either, he thought; he couldn’t possibly do worse than Harris. He wondered if there was a book?

“All, all right, Willow. Thank you. I, I won't tell him that we’ve spoken.”

“You mad at him, Giles?”

“Yes,” he said honestly.

“You won’t...”

“I’ll think of something. I won’t send him away.”

He got a ferocious hug for that, which spiked pain through his wound and doubled him up. Willow whimpered for him, until he got his breath back.

“Sorry.”

He nodded, slowly recovering the power of speech, and using it softly but with deep feeling.

“Giles?”

“Hnh?”

“What did that word mean?”

“Which... no, never mind. None of those were words you may use.”

“Giles?”

He straightened; that wasn’t Willow, it was Buffy.

“You mad at Xander?”

He groaned. “Yes, Buffy.”

“You gonna...”

“No, I’m not going to shout at him. No, I’m not going to throw him out. No, I don’t know what I’m going to do instead.”

“He’s gone all quiet and lost-puppyish.”

“I suppose I should be thankful for small blessings.”

“Giles!” Behind her, Willow slipped down the steps.

“What do you want me to say, Buffy? I’m angry with the boy. He got you hurt.”

“Yeah, but Slayer healing, no real harm done.”

“Yes, well, lucky you. Watcher healing lacks something in comparison. Like the healing element.”

“He didn’t mean it.”

“He was responsible for it nonetheless.”

“He meant well.”

“And what do we know about the road to hell and good intentions?”

She pushed the stool at him, and folded herself down onto the floor; he sank down onto the uncomfortable metal with a sigh.

“Giles, he says he doesn’t know what use he is here.”

“Frankly, Buffy, at the moment, neither do I.”

“Well, think of something, Giles. Because I need him, same as I need Willow, and you. Maybe all he does is make us laugh, maybe he’s not the big-brain Watcher or the computer girl, but he’s here, every night, and maybe you need to get a grip on that. Sort yourselves out, Giles. I don’t actually care if you do yell at him, or ground him, or put him in detention, or send him to bed without his supper, but _sort it out_. Because you’re crabby and he’s all silent and unhappy and if he’s done something wrong, maybe you should go about showing him how to do it right rather than just complaining?”

“I, I had already reached that conclusion.”

“And you’re going to deal?”

He sighed. “A ‘please’ would be nice, Buffy.”

She came and knelt at his feet, arms carefully around him, avoiding the bandage, head against his shoulder. “Please, Giles. Pretty please with icing and sprinkles.”

“I don’t like sprinkles,” he said sulkily into her hair. She drew back a little and glared at him.

“Pretty please with... with jalapeños, then.” She made a face, and he laughed at her.

“And extra olives? Anchovies?”

She shuddered. He kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll sort it out, Buffy. Get Oz to take you and Willow home. I’ll look after Xander.”

 


	2. Implementing the Policy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Giles and Xander try out the ‘screw-up, confession, yelling, grovelling’ plan, with variations.

Yell at him. Ground him. Put him in detention. None of them was a practical solution – the yelling thing was already a failure; he could hardly ground a child who didn’t live with him (or who only lived with him part-time); he could just see himself putting Xander in detention and completing the Discipline Record in the school office. _Harris A L, 3 sessions, offence: disobeying orders and almost getting himself and other students eaten by a demon. R Giles (Librarian)._

Actually, it might be worth doing that just to see the look on Snyder’s face... No. _Focus, Giles._

He descended the short flight of stairs, heading for the office. He would make tea and sit down for five minutes and then maybe... And there were those meditation exercises he had taught Buffy. They were supposed to calm and centre the Slayer – or, come to that, the Watcher – before battle. To let them concentrate on the essentials and ignore everything else. Perhaps he would do one of those: dealing with a teenager probably counted as ‘battle’, didn’t it? And he knew damn well, going into battle in a rage was a sure way to lose. A sure way to do the wrong thing, and God knew, he seemed to be capable of doing the wrong thing in respect of Xander without any outside help.

He drank his tea and thought. He didn’t trust either his instincts or his intellect to see him right with Xander, but they were the only resources he had: he couldn’t ask anybody else for assistance. Both of them told him that no matter how angry he was, and no matter the righteousness of that anger, whatever he did to curb Xander's dangerous tendencies had to be immediate, and followed by equally immediate and obvious forgiveness. He watched through the open door; the boy flicked occasional glances at him when he thought Giles wasn’t looking, but he went steadily on with his work, eventually reaching for the thick strap he had offered Giles. It fastened back onto the axe harness, and Giles suddenly stood up and took three long strides to the table, leaning over Xander and taking the axe from his hands.

Behind the head was a stiff oval piece of leather, the size, perhaps, of Giles’ hand, or a little bigger. It was designed to protect the blade in transit; one end tapered to a stiffened neck which buckled to the main harness. Giles freed it from the axe, one eye on Oz, who was talking to the girls at the far end of the room, and set it down in front of Xander. “That,” he said softly. “Not the strap.”

Xander looked at it, and then up at him, searching his face for... he wasn’t sure what. Then he nodded once, decidedly, and stood up.

“Now?”

Giles was startled. He hadn’t expected such instant capitulation, even allowing for it having been Xander's idea in the first place; he certainly had no intention of humiliating Xander to the extent of carrying out his threat in front of an audience.

“God, no! When they’ve gone. I wouldn’t do that to you,” he added awkwardly, and Xander dipped his head, hiding behind his fringe again. Giles turned away. “Oz? We’ll finish up here if you’ll take the girls home.”

They had obviously been talking; Buffy and Willow both hugged Xander, and Oz punched him lightly on the arm and said something low, which Giles didn’t catch. He followed them to the door to lock it behind them; Willow turned back, and gave him the puppy-dog eyes.

“You won’t yell too much, will you, Giles?”

“No yelling,” he assured her.

“Not even for some weird British definition of yelling?”

“British yelling is much the same as American yelling. I’m not intending to raise my voice at all.”

The puppy-dog expression deepened. “No really horrible sarcasm either?”

“Leave the man _something_ ,” interposed Oz. “Sarcasm is just what he does.”

“I know, but...”

“Willow – Xander’s in trouble. You can’t talk him out of it. But I promise, I won’t be more than averagely horrible, and not for very long. It will be over for Xander even faster if you go away.”

“Best you’re going to do, Will,” advised Buffy. “Leave them to fight and bond like boys do. At least I think they do. Oz, do they?”

Giles and Oz exchanged an eye-roll; Giles locked the door and listened while the footsteps died away down the corridor.

“The office, I think, Xander.” He picked up the leather guard as he passed the table; Xander followed him inside.

“I, I need to know that we’re, we’re agreed about, about what we’re doing.” He couldn’t think of any way to go on but Xander forestalled him.

“I screwed up. You’re mad. You’re going to...” he cast an uneasy look at the guard, “...paddle me. And then you won’t be mad any more?”

Oh, dear Lord. That last was just pathetic. “That’s, that’s a very fair summary. But, but you don’t have to. You know I’m angry and you know why; you can, you can just sit it out,” oh good heavens, that was _such_ a bad choice of words, “and you know that I’ll stop being angry eventually.” But the trouble was, the boy probably _didn’t_ know that, or at least didn’t really believe it. “I’ve got no right to punish you. I’m not your father or your teacher or your Watcher. I won’t force you.”

Xander gave him a look of mild derision. “Yeah, right. You’re the guy with the ripped shirt and the hole in his side because I screwed up. I’d say that gives you rights.”

“None that I’m going to insist on if, if, if... You don’t...”

“Yeah, I _do_ , Giles, and can we just do it before my nerve goes completely?” 

He nodded, and pushed the chair into the middle of the floor.

“Drop your trousers, bend over, hands on the seat. There’s only you and me here and I don’t care how much noise you make, but you stay in position until I tell you to move. We’ll do this in two parts. You don’t get to change your mind half way through, Xander, so last chance to back out now.” 

“Not backing out,” said Xander in a small voice, pushing his trousers over his hips; “I – do you want me to...” he was crimson, and Giles realised that he was wondering if Giles wanted him to drop his boxers too.

“No, that’ll do,” he said hastily; oh dear Lord, the boy had superhero shorts on. It made the focus shift again; reminded him how young Xander was. Not the age Giles had been when he made such a pig’s breakfast of his life, but younger – still young enough for his faults to be corrected rather than simply endured. “Go on, over.” The boy’s shirt was about four sizes too big for him; Giles pulled the tail of it up and tucked it into the back of the soft collar, and then rested the flat of the guard against Xander's rump.

“Now: I trust I have your attention? Buffy is the Slayer, Xander. It’s what she is, it’s what she does. I am the Watcher and it’s my job to keep the Slayer safe. I do this by planning, as far as I can, for every eventuality. I don’t always get it right, but I do my best. I have to remove as many variables as I can – and I can’t do that if one of the variables is you. I need to know that I can trust you to be where I expect you to be, and doing the thing I told you to do. If you do anything else, you-are-endangering-my-Slayer,” (these punctuated by light taps with the guard, making Xander jump and twitch). “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What you did tonight led directly to Buffy being injured. Is that true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will _not_ permit you to endanger my Slayer by rank disobedience. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.” 

Another tap. “Say it, please.”

“I’m not to... to put Buffy in danger by... disobedience.”

Tap. “Again.”

“I’m not to put Buffy in danger by... disobedience.”

Tap. “Again.”

“I’m not to put Buffy in danger by disobedience.”

“Good. Now let’s see if we can make you remember it.”

The first noisy smack got a shocked intake of breath and the second elicited a sudden squirm, but then Xander locked his knees, and lowered his head, and Giles thought he had primed himself simply to endure. He hadn’t asked how many he was to receive, and Giles realised with some shame that he hadn’t even thought about it, that he had nerved himself to the action but not considered the detail. A round dozen, he thought – unless Xander's reactions gave him to believe that excessive. Certainly no more, not given that he intended a second act. The fifth and sixth brought Xander up onto his toes, and his hands shifted on the seat; Giles hesitated a moment to let him regain his balance. Seven collapsed Xander's left knee, and his hips twisted, but he pushed himself hastily back into position and Giles gave him the benefit of the doubt. He made the next three a little quicker, leaving Xander panting desperately, and then set a steadying hand on Xander's back.

“Last two.”

Xander presumably worked out for himself that they would be hard; Giles saw his knuckles on the edge of the seat turn white. They _were_ hard too, and Giles’ ribs burned with the effort.

“That’s half way. Stand up.”

Xander was flushed and his lip was red and swollen where he had bitten it, but his eyes were dry; that hadn’t been too much, then. His hands went behind him to rub and Giles hid a smile and allowed it just for a moment. He dropped the guard on his desk.

“Stand still. Hands by your sides. All right, that’s Buffy dealt with. Who else did you endanger by what you did?”

Xander's mouth twisted.

“As well as Buffy? You. You got hurt. I’m really sorry...” That was almost a whimper, the whimper which his own pain had not extracted from him.

“Leave me out of it. I’m the Watcher, I know the risks. Who else?”

He looked at his feet. “Willow, I suppose.”

Giles sighed. The boy really had _no idea_. “Willow was safely away to one side, where she was supposed to be.”

Xander looked blank. Giles fought the temptation to roll his eyes. “Xander, there were only four of us there and so far you’ve named three.”

“Oh. Oh! Me, I suppose.”

“You, you suppose,” mocked Giles. “I believed that I was going to have to carry your body out of there. I believed that the demon would skewer you and I would be able to do nothing except fight the damn thing while you bled to death at my feet.” His voice went tight and Xander looked up, his eyes desperate, and then back at the floor. “I honestly thought that you were going to die right there in front of me and I would be able to do _nothing_ about it. It’s a risk we take every time we go out, I know that, and you compounded the risk because _you didn’t do as you were bloody told_.” He waited for Xander to look up again, and then said gently, “Do you think I could bear knowing that you were dead for such a stupid reason? Not because you weren’t a good enough fighter, but because you didn’t concentrate? How do you think it would make the rest of us feel? Buffy says she needs you, Xander. So do I.”

He had intended to make Xander repeat aloud his understanding of these sins too, but he saw the quivering chin, judged that the voice would be uncontrolled and uncontrollable – and was merciful. Not, he thought, that Xander would agree. He sat down on the chair.

“Over my knee.”

For a moment Xander seemed actually not to understand the words. Then he blushed hotly and shuffled forward, his trousers binding his ankles. Giles saw the moment at which he recollected that Giles was left-handed, and shifted to that side, leaning gracelessly forward and settling himself across Giles’ lap. It was an undignified position, and Giles made it worse, suddenly straightening his right leg, so that Xander dropped with a squeak towards the floor, nose almost on the carpet, back arched, arse high and vulnerable over Giles’ left thigh.

“You may not put yourself in danger needlessly. You matter too much to us – to all of us, to Willow, to Buffy, to _me_ for you to do that. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Giles.”

And that, he thought, drawing back his hand, was the right answer. Not ‘yes, sir’. This wasn’t between the Watcher and one of the Slayer’s foot soldiers. This was between Giles and Xander, and Giles intended to see that it wasn’t soon forgotten. Not, he thought, that there was much risk of that. Xander's courage seemed to have deserted him – no, not his courage, thought Giles; the boy was neither trying to get away nor asking to be spared. But his stoicism was lost; Xander had submitted to a sharp paddling with no more complaint than a gasp or two, but tipped over Giles’ knee and spanked, not even particularly hard – Giles’ ribs were giving him three sorts of hell, and Xander's carefully applied bandages prevented him raising his arm high – and the boy whimpered from start to finish. That might very well be a result of the personal element. It certainly wasn’t physical cruelty on Giles’ part: he thought with black amusement that traditionally, he was supposed to inform Xander that this hurt Giles more than it did Xander, but in this specific case, it was almost certainly the literal truth. He couldn’t manage much more, he thought, and rationed himself to a final few stinging smacks delivered to the bare and tender skin on the backs of Xander's thighs, eliciting a wail of protest.

“All right. I think that will do.” He slid a hand under Xander's chest and levered him back to the horizontal. “Go on, get up. I believe I’m supposed to make all sorts of threats about what I’ll do next time, but I would much prefer there not to _be_ a next time, and so, I’m sure, would you. You can, you can dress yourself.”

He climbed painfully to his feet while Xander hastily made himself decent; there was a moment’s hesitation while Xander plainly marshalled his courage to look into Giles’ face.

“Is that... are we... I’m sorry. I’ll... I can do better. I will.”

Giles hesitated in turn, and then reached for him tentatively. “I know you will.”

If the hug was tighter on Giles’ sore ribs than was quite comfortable, and if Xander's eyes, hidden against Giles’ shoulder, were wet, neither of them commented.

* * * * *

Rather to Giles’ surprise, the next day was less awful than he had anticipated. He had been blackmailed quite shamelessly into allowing Xander to sleep on his couch,  the boy putting on puppy-dog eyes worthy of Willow herself and saying with a quiver in his voice, “I’ll go home if you say I must, but you ought to have somebody there, you’re _injured_ , you ought not to drive or carry things, and you ought to let somebody look after you... but of course I’ll do whatever you want.” He had glared, and given way, and allowed Xander to fuss awkwardly until he was tucked in bed with a cup of rather weak tea and two more painkillers. The coffee in the morning had been better – if Xander was going to spend a lot of time at the flat he would have to be taught how to make a decent cup of tea – and he didn’t deny that it had been easier to allow Xander to clean and re-dress his wound than to try to do it himself. Xander had refrained from comment on the things Giles thought of as suitable breakfast foods, and Giles had returned the compliment, pretending that the box of sugary cereal had been bought in error rather than as a just-in-case after the last time Xander had stayed over.

He had been more glad than not to let Xander drive him to school; nor had he argued when Xander had picked up the things which needed to be brought inside. He had mentioned in the staff room that he had put his back out, and on that basis had borrowed a couple of students to deal with the new book delivery for him. Regular tea and painkillers saw him through the morning.

Xander shot through the library at the end of lunchtime; Giles was occupied with a couple of students who had left their project research much too late and who were now complaining that other students had signed out all the really useful books, and managed no more than a nod in Xander's direction. He came back to the office to find a note in Xander's untidy hand.

_Don’t carry stuff to the car, I’ll be round to do it and to drive you home. Think we missed a step of the deal yesterday so this is yours. Xander_

Underneath it was a box containing a single jelly doughnut.


End file.
